Critics groups are so biased. They only nominate actors for films that they like! If a film isn’t critically acclaimed its harder for an actor to get nominated by critics groups. That is a shame.

so true :(. They kept nominating Denzel last year for Fences when there were so many other movie and performances better than his last year :/. That was a shame.

I mean, in a perfect world, the very best performances would be nominated regardless of quality of the movie but it becomes a lot harder to compare performances when the qualities of the movies are so varied. And when the film surrounding an actor’s performance is not of quality it typically sinks the performance. Actors who are able to transcend that to compete with actors in high quality movies are rarities.

Also, I think I’m in the minority of people (definitely minority on this site) who really liked Fences and Denzel in particular. That was my third favorite BP nominee and Denzel would be my winner.

I don’t see how this is a bad or weird thing. Obviously they would rather award an actor from a movie they actually liked, who wouldn’t?

It’s a double edged sword. Some of the greatest performances of all-time go unrecognised because critics are “meh” on the movie.

Val Kilmer should have been nominated for and won every award possible for his incredible, now legendary performance as Doc Holiday in Tombstone. Reviews were pretty mixed for the film, and Kilmer’s magnificent performance got nothing anywhere, except an MTV Movie Award nomination for Kilmer’s performance.

Thank you for the insights, they’re actually really interesting. Totally disagree that Chalamet had a less difficult task in playing Elio. I would imagine that a naturalistic performance like that would be extremely difficult. The level of empathy he had was incredible.

I can see why a physical performance would be the first choice, but there’s something about subtlety that I hope represents a sort of new wave in awarded acting. It’s what made Affleck so interesting to watch last year and Timmy so interesting this year.

I appreciate that you appreciate my insights. Thanks!

Variety is the spice of life, as they say. I admire acting in all it’s forms and guises. I can appreciate a no-frills naturalistic performance, but I can also appreciate the thrill of a really intricate technical performance. Ideally, most great actors should be capable of doing both.

BAFTA actually are not massive fans of Oldman. He’s won BAFTA’s for his directorial debut Nil By mouth. But in terms of acting, he’s only had 2 nominations and no wins. Which is not exactly a great return for a British actor of his standing in Britain. I think his moving to America in the early 90’s and “going Hollywood” rubbed the BAFTA establishment up the wrong way.

However there is no way BAFTA is going to resist awarding a British Oscar frontrunner for playing Winston Churchill in a British film, even if they don’t exactly love the guy. Oldman should have BAFTA in the bag.

For BAFTA it’s about the “brand”, which is promoting British excellence in film. Oldman happpens to be the Brit who looks in a winning position this year, so they’ll back him for the sake of the brand.

But SAG is it’s own thing. You need to understand how actors judge things in certain categories. There is a weight of expectation. I knew Casey Affleck wasn’t winning SAG last year, yet 99% of people thought he had it in the bag because he completely swept the critics awards. It was a completely no frills performance up against a virtuoso technical display. The no frills performance ain’t winning lead Actor at SAG.

Chalamet might be as far back as 4th at SAG. Even if Oldman wasn’t there, I don’t think Chalamet could beat Denzel with a performance as technically adroit as Roman J Israel at SAG.